A change in classroom seating arrangements challenges old habits and leads to a new friendship in this funny new school story from award-winning author Anne Fine.At first Ben doesn't want to sit next to Alice in the classroom. She's scary and tells him off for his squiggly drawing and poor handwriting. She even points out his bad table manners. But when Ben starts to take Alice's advice, he realises that she might have a point and discovers that sitting next to her isn't so bad after all.

An acclaimed and award-winning author of books for both adults and children, Anne Fine was the second Waterstones Children's Laureate holding the post from 2001 to 2003. Fine began writing in the 1970's and since then has written more than seventy books for children of all ages as well as novels for adults. Amongst her best-known works are Goggle-Eyes, which won both the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and the coveted Carnegie Medal, Flour Babies, which also won the Carnegie, Madame Doubtfire, later adapted into the hit children's film Mrs Doubtfire, and Bill's New Frock. In 2003 Anne Fine was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was awarded an OBE.